We asked about the condition of Lindsey Vonn’s knee, the prospects of Bode Miller making his fifth Olympic team and the possibility of Canada and the U.S. meeting again for ice hockey gold.

We even asked a question about his recent decision to stop drinking that prompted this answer from snowboarder Louie Vito: “Besides, when I’m 30, I can board in the morning and have drinks the rest of the day.”

And it’s always a good idea for athletes to have a plan for when their playing careers are over.

We asked all the important questions last week in Utah at the Team USA summit in advance of the 2014 Winter Games, media members used to reporting on the Cowboys, A-Rod and Kobe suddenly probing into the nuances of Nordic Combined.

Although that might sound like a bit of a stretch, our relentless professionalism more than made up for any lack of knowledge regarding winter sporting endeavors, thank you very much.

But then a hand went up in the back of the room and a local television reporter, addressing a panel of USOC executives, posed this question:

“So how, exactly, do you pronounce Sochi?”

Yeah, we probably should have asked that one sooner.

Notably, all six panelists weren’t completely sure, though SO-chee was the consensus, with SAH-chee receiving limited endorsement.

Whatever it’s called, it’s the site of the next Olympics. In February, the seaside city in Russia will host athletes from all over the world, athletes pursuing their dreams, dreams sometimes launched from the most unlikely of places.

Like nightmares.

“I remember thinking that I wished there was a button, like a pilot has, that I could push to eject,” Lolo Jones said. “Then, at one point, I started praying. I said, ‘Oh, God, please make it be over.’”

And so went her maiden voyage in an Olympic bobsled. A short time later, Jones willingly subjected herself to the torment again.

See, that’s what they do in a sport in which a 400-pound sleigh snakes down an icy path that’s as straight as your small intestines at close to 90 mph.

Of course, the sleds are outfitted with all the necessary equipment, except for barf bags.

You remember Jones, right? She’s one of those Olympians known for going for gold but ending up with coal, a woman who harbors all sorts of dreams and nightmares, some of them unfolding in unison.

Jones’ day job is the 100-meter hurdles. At the 2008 Games, she was winning the final until hitting the second-to-last hurdle and ending up seventh. Four years later, she overcame spinal cord surgery and an uncooperative hamstring, made the Olympics again … and finished fourth.

Her failures went from viral to toxic to twisted because of Jones’ immense popularity, which is rightly earned but also wrongly resented.

She makes every list of world’s sexiest athletes. She attracts even more attention with her personality. She has 370,000 followers on Twitter. And maybe that many haters, too.

In the aftermath of the ’12 Games, Jones was forced to survive a Twitter tornado that pinned her non-medal finishes on the fact – and these critics were being serious – she’s a virgin.

“One day, when I talk to my kids about my Olympic pursuit, I don’t want to end the story with, ‘Yeah, I went to the Olympics and I gave up after that,’” she said. “No, I’m going to fight for this.”

That’s why she’s trying to go back to the Games now as a bobsledder, a sport without hurdles but not without obstacles.

No doubt, she still has the commitment of an Olympian. Jones has been so good at gaining weight that, during a recent commercial shoot, her racing suit split open.

“My grocery bill for track is so small compared to trying to feed yourself every two hours,” Jones, 31, said. “I feel like I’m feeding a family. The worst are my legs. They just feel so thick. I feel like I have pregnant legs.”

There’s also acclimating to G-forces, learning how to go faster while staying upright and figuring out what to do when that whole upright thing doesn’t quite work out.

Jones has had one horrific crash so far, a spill that left her thoroughly shaken, trapped on the ice beneath the sled and feeling like her skin was melting away.

“When I screamed, I couldn’t believe I could make that sound,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. Is that me? That’s me screaming.’ It was scary.”

So, too, could be another Olympic opportunity gone sour. But it sounds like that’s one of the lesser chances Jones is taking now.

On Saturday, the bobsled team trials begin in Lake Placid. Next stop, Sochi – that’s SO-chee – the place where all our Olympic questions eventually will be answered.

Jeff Miller has been a sports columnist since 1998, having previously written for the Palm Beach Post, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Miami Herald. He began at the Register in 1995 as beat writer for the Angels.

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